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Honey is Sweet

Sometimes I'm Fishin' - 2009-06-02

I'm grateful for: feeling better while feeling worse; getting stuff done; silly t-shirts.

I still haven't managed to find time to read anyone else's diary/blog since the long (for us) weekend.

I also didn't manage to find the time or energy to have those talks with the kids I wrote about. Because, you know, I plan and Gd laughs. Loudly. A really big belly laugh, you know? I only hope it's not a mean laugh. Sometimes it's hard to believe that He is not just having the best time at my expense. Not usually, but sometimes...

I've done so very much! And that's good. My room has WAY more space in it, as piles of stuff I've had piled around me 'to do' have melted away. There is still stuff, don't get me wrong. Years of stuff to do. But it almost all fits on the shelves and desks now. Well, not really, but it is getting closer.

I heard from RS that an uncle, Warren, passed away this winter. No one told us. Either of us, until RS heard this weekend. RS is really upset - about uncle Warren being dead, and also about not being told about it. Our family is so royally f**ked up there are no words. RS heard via mother who heard it from Lloyd - who was throwing a nutty because he hadn't been told about the funeral of his brother. It would certainly be reasonable to be upset about that, except that I remember that when Lloyd's mother died, Warren practically moved heaven and earth to try to find Lloyd to get him there, and left messages over half of the world, and Lloyd refused to believe or acknowledge it and carried on almost exactly the same way. So, who knows?

So, RS and I were on the phone for quite a while. I ranted a bit about FB, who I've invited to come stay for shabbos this week, and now I am having second, and third, and WAY MANY thoughts about it. It's too late, I really can't UNinvite him. I am still really hurt and angry about the way he behaved. This is the first time I'm having him out for almost two years because of the awful way he behaved and things he said.

I was on the phone with RS for two hours yesterday, which was a blessing in that when Linda - D1's kid's father's new wife - phoned wanting to talk, I could say with complete honesty I simply hadn't the strength to talk with her. I also talked with RS for a while today, but was interrupted by a phone call from S2, who wanted/needed to complain and cry at me about how awful basic training and his mefakedet is.

S3 was waiting for a bedtime story, and after the story TH had to go meet with the landlord to pay the rent, and so on, so I had less patience than I might have. Also, S2 was really whining about stuff that didn't need to be whined about. I know, I'm not there and I've never gone through army training, but I have dealt with some difficult situation in life, and this really was S2 just being a bit of a whiny brat. I still felt bad for him, but I had other things I needed (and wanted) to be doing. Still, I was kind of stuck on the phone with him, as I waited for the ability to get off. I was stressed and stressing and asked TH to help, at which he did -- absolutely nothing. Of course. I got angry at TH and sent him out of the room, then managed without TH and S3 breathing down my neck to summon the words and say I was sorry but I really had to go. *very deep sigh*

We're still reading Famous Five books by Enid Blyton. S3 loves, loves, loves them. We only have the first five (I thought that that was all there were until very recently), and I don't see any reason to pursue any more of the series. The first five really are terrific, but I know from too many other series that it will get tiresome eventually. I'd rather have just the five and continue to love, love, love them. S3 get's so excited he can't sit still, and he squeals, and jumps up and down, and runs out of the room in his excitement, and is generally more thrilled than he has ever been by a bedtime story, book or movie/video before. Okay, besides Thomas the Tank Engine when he was a real little guy. ;-)

Like I said, I've been busy. I got all sorts of bills paid. Not all of them, we still have to pay S1's national insurance, which was only not paid today because the office wasn't open when we got there. I took S2's watch (legacy from my grandfather) to be repaired, something that has been waiting for months. I went and got a T-shirt made for myself that reads "Life is Short. Make Fun of It." in rainbow letters. In Hebrew - החיים קצרים. תצחקו עליהם. - which translates in English into 'Life is short, laugh at it,' but it's the best I could do.

RS found a free program of Hebrew flash cards which I've been doing a bit. Not regularly, I don't have the time or energy to do it every day or anything like that, but it is good. It's mostly good for me learning Hebrew spelling. So far I pretty much know all the words ( - כיוון - confused me. It means 'direction'), but in some cases couldn't begin to guess how they should be spelled.

I've been getting a bit of knitting done on the baby blanket from heck. It's not a baby blanket any longer, the girl is preschool age at least, but it actually has a hope of being finished. If I was functional knitting I could finish this last bit in a couple of days - a week if I was interrupted a lot. As it is, I am hoping for no more than a few months. Still, even if I only manage a few rows, it feels really good to be doing it again.

I've been doing schoolwork with S3. Almost every day. Not all the schoolwork every day, but that is probably for the best. He reads aloud to me in English, and works on phonics, and is learning the alef-bet (Hebrew alphabet) and today he read his first ever Hebrew book - with my help, but he did it. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

Lessee, I drove S3 and D3 to their riding lesson today and that was great. I was *really* tired, and in a lot of pain, so I staggered to the car, drank a Pepsi to keep awake, drove there, and never got out of the car. Fortunately I could park where I could watch the lesson. Both of them really look quite good on horseback. S3 is a natural, he seems to look like he belongs up there, and D3 who at first was terribly afraid to be up so high (despite it was her dearest wish and persistence that got us to get the riding lessons), really has pulled together. The have a competition/show on Friday. I don't care for those at all, not to mention they charge us really HUGE sums of money for the kids to participate. But it is part of the whole thing for now. Someday, maybe, we can afford to buy a horse and can tone down the 'participation' aspect as then the kids can ride every day at home.

Horses, I should say, are WAY less expensive here than in the U.S. or U.K. You can buy one for a song, and since there is no issue of winter feeding (or stabling really) the biggest expense is some sort of housing fencing to keep the horse from being stolen. Okay, maybe not a *song* But they are seriously quite affordable. ... Unless they die on you.

Our neighbour Tzion's horse died from encephilitis (mosquito vector, very sad), and what it cost him to take care of the body! Well, more than the horse, I'll tell you that. And (whispered behind the hand) had he disposed of the body *legally* it would have cost literally thousands and thousands of shekel. It was disposed of safely and in such a way as to cause no harm to the environment or anyone, but there are REALLY strict laws about that sort of thing.

I've kind of lost it. A list might work better for getting it out and making sense, but somehow it would make my diary feel more like work, rather than something I am doing for me. So I ramble and mutter on.

I have caught up on the laundry once, and am poised to be caught up again. Part of it is the change to summer. So many blankets and things to be washed before packing them away for the next six or more months. I try to hang as much as I can out on a clothesline (I could hang a lot more if TH had put up a clothesline that I can actually use), but I try to only run the dryer at night. It is ridiculous to be using a dryer here, really, but as long as I can't really use the clothesline I won't object to the softer towels and un-stiff underwear. *grin* So I am up tonight waiting for one load to finish to put another one in the dryer, then I will probably try to sleep.

I've started another book so now I'm in the middle of The Financier (Theodore Dreiser), Last Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko), and a science fiction anthology, titled something like World's Best Science Fiction #10 (edited by Judith Mills). I've read the shorts before, but it's been so long some of them I don't even recognize them after re-reading them. The other two are both first-time reads for me. Well, Last Watch is a new book, so there is that. It's going very fast, too, and lots of fun now that it's started moving. I am, of course, reading it in translation from the original (Russian). The translator must get a lot of credit for producing such a readable book - it doesn't read like a translation, and so many of them do.

I've burned dvd's and cleared videos off my shelves and moved books around so that there is more room, and more of the books are see-able. I have a goal, no doubled shelves of books. I don't know how long it will take to get there, especially if I keep buying books, but I have faith, it will happen.

Last night I even got letters written, and sent a few postcards as well. Which then meant that today included a trip to buy stamps from the post office.

Tonight after paying the rent (it's involved, because TH has to be social, and I think it could take hours), TH and I played a rail game (Iron Dragon) and watched a Dr. Who episode.

Tonight is D3's night with Kitten. Kitten is just so wonderful. She is fighting back with Peppito, now, and doesn't seem at all as bothered by him as she was. She plays outside, she still doesn't like to be outside by herself, but she will stay out after I go in for a while.

Physically I am not doing well at all. To walk from the car to the sofa (we have outside between the two houses) hurt so bad, and was utterly exhausting. Going up of down the steps - there just are no words. So I spent almost all day in bed (except when running errands in Netivot, or driving kids to their riding lessons) making only the shortest forays to the bathroom, which is where the laundry stuff is, and once to the den.

There is good news in all of this, which is although I am hurting badly and can't do much, I am not stressing about it as much as I was even recently. I can't say not stressing at all, but it actually feels stress-free because the stress level is so low. That's pretty amazing, to me.

Tomorrow we have a very big civil defense exercise going on here. The whole country is going to get a 'missile alert' at 11:00am, and everyone is supposed to act as if it is a real alert. For us of course since we have no bomb shelter or safe room it means pretty much acting as usual.

***

Interrupted. Now it's after 2am. The last load of laundry is in, but Chamudah, my little black dog who sleeps in my room almost 'round the clock announced she had to go outside. So I'm waiting for her to get back. Or to find a hedgehog. ;-7

I've definitely lost the thread, though, and it is past time for me to be trying to sleep.

***

There, now Chamudah is back in my room, and on my bed, and Balta, who was here and taking up more than half of the bed has moved on. I love Balta, she is very sweet, but she is very LARGE.

Time to try to sleep. No, really.

I'm listening to Supertramp: Ain't Nobody But Me

0 bleats so far

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06